Stonebriar
by Cyprith
Summary: She wasn’t a necromancer, but she was close enough. And Lucien wasn’t dead, but—-well… actually that’s a matter of opinion… Lucien Lachance/OFC
1. Chapter One

Author's Note: I really like the concept of Mourner's Dawn—the whole command prompt **resurrect** thing actually being an in-game possibility. But I don't think I did the idea justice the first time around. It started out alright, but then I started writing it again after a hiatus and it just got _silly_. So this one, I hope, will be the story I meant to write when I started writing Mourner's Dawn.

Now, that doesn't mean it's the same story in any way. This is not Mourner's Dawn Redux. This is a story about the Black Hand acting like adults rather than a crazed band of betrayed teenagers and actually trying to solve their problems in a calm and logical fashion… and then forgoing all of that to better feast on Lucien's entrails.

But generally light hearted, despite this.

**Stonebriar**

**Chapter One**

*

Lucien blinked, wondering when the entirety of the Black Hand had gone mad and why in Sithis' name was he always the one left to clean up the mess. But Ungolim only stood there, picking through the towering stack of contracts on Lucien's desk like asking a Speaker of the Black Hand to go _make friends_ with a _Necromancer_ was an everyday occurrence.

"Tell me, Ungolim," Lucien said at last, easing himself down into the nearest chair. "Just how long has it been since you took complete leave of your senses?"

Ungolim turned and fixed him with a look of cold disinterest, one eyebrow arched.

"Lachance, you do understand the situation you are in, yes?"

There was no other excuse for it, Lucien decided, meeting the mer's gaze. They'd all gone mad. Somehow, the worst parts of Sithis had leaked from the void while he was out chasing down his damned Silencer and they'd all gone _stark raving mad _without him.

"I understand that Arquen has taken it into her head I am to blame for the recent deaths in the Family, if that is what you're implying," he said at last, registering the unreadable look on Ungolim's face with the knowledge that it usually prefaced _Lucien, my friend, I'd like you to do something totally idiotic that could very well kill you. _

"And at the moment it is her word against yours."

"Might I remind you," Lucien snapped, running gloved fingers through his hair, "That not only do these deaths bear the mark of an unsteady hand, but that they have ceased since Arquen took on a Silencer."

Ungolim pursed his lips, shooting Lucien a look that very clearly said _idiot child_.

"And might I remind you that Arquen can account for her whereabouts for every unfortunate death, whereas you, my friend…"

Ah, there was the _my friend_, Lucien noted with abject distaste. Frankly, he was surprised it had taken so long.

"Be that as it may, I fail to see how bringing a Necromancer into the Family will help matters."

Ungolim sighed and sat down at the small table, one hand already massaging his temple.

"Is this your normal state of idiocy, Lachance, or are you being especially difficult today?" he snapped without venom. "This woman is not a Necromancer. Or, if my sources can be entirely trusted, not the sort of Necromancer we're accustomed to at any rate. It is my understanding that she can put the correct soul to the body rather than a…" he trailed off, waving a hand in the air as his thoughts eluded him, "a collection of soul-shaped energy."

Lucien pursed his lips and leaned back in his chair, watching Ungolim for any sign that this was some sort of strange test. Bosmer were notoriously flighty in their logic and Ungolim was no exception. His tests of loyalty were often both violent and ridiculous. But then, that was the sort of thing one expected from a race that _enjoyed _drinking _fermented sheep_.

"You and I both know contacts in the Mages' Guild are next to useless," Lucien said at last. "Their… language seems to consist entirely of what _might_ be possible in the next hundred years rather than what is currently applicable. Somehow, I don't think our dead will wait that long."

But Ungolim only shook his head, pulling a wrinkled scrap of parchment from his pocket.

"This woman doesn't work for the Mages' Guild," he said, grabbing a bottle of ink from the nearby desk with a stray bolt of telekinesis. "So far as I can tell, she doesn't work for any guild."

Lucien opened his mouth to protest and stopped. This was… interesting actually. Even Necromancers had their strange half assembled Order of the Black Worm and various allegiances. And yet this… woman worked alone? Lucien closed his eyes, fingers twitching out the motions of a spell that would ease his headache a little. He knew better than to trust Ungolim in matters like this. They'd been working together far too long now and Ungolim knew just how to phrase his requests to peak Lucien's interest. Chances were this was just another mountain crazy, half dead from hypothermia and worshipping an Uderfrykte or something equally bizarre.

"How did you manage to find her?" he asked at last.

Ungolim smiled without looking up, scratching figures into the parchment.

"She has a very talkative neighbor." He snorted and looked up, passing the parchment across the table before continuing in unnerving falsetto, "She's just _so proud_ _to see dear Ellie working for those Blades._"

Lucien looked down at the map Ungolim had scrawled, burning the haphazard lines to memory.

"Her neighbor is the old Draconis woman?" he said with some surprise, looking up to meet Ungolim's eyes through the gloom of the fort.

Ungolim only cocked a brow.

"You know of her?"

"I have a contract for her." He laughed and leaned back. "As soon as I can track my Silencer down."

Ungolim shook his head.

"Postpone it. From what I hear, I doubt this girl is nearly as idiotic as her neighbor. She'll recognize your Silencer's rather… _distinctive_ work and I don't want to startle her off."

Lucien glared, his headache flaring back with a vengeance.

"I resent the implication that Fieryra is incapable of subtlety. I do not choose my Silencers idly, Ungolim. I can assure you—"

"No," he snapped with all the finality of a sepulcher crashing shut. "I do not want to give this woman any reason what so ever to fear for her life."

Lucien sighed and ran his fingers through his hair again, listening as the guardians clattered down the hallway and wondering if the Dark Brotherhood would ever run as cleanly as it had for his father.

"Do we at least know what she is capable of?" he asked. "I do _not_ fancy going into a Necromancer's den without at least knowing what I'm up against."

But Ungolim only shook his head.

"Think of her less as a Necromancer and more as a… country healer with unorthodox methods."

"Yes, I often find reanimating the dead to be a rather _unorthodox method," _Lucien snapped peevishly. "This is ludicrous, Ungolim. Many of our Family have been _mutilated_. What makes you think they are not past repair?"

Ungolim glowered at him over the table and there was no doubt in Lucien's mind just how little love lay between them.

"This woman works for the families of dead Blades. Dead Blades that every so often turn up scarred but otherwise unharmed."

"And that proves her prowess at managing the dead, is that it?" Lucien interrupted and pushed away from the table, striding towards the cauldron on the opposite end of the room. "The only thing that proves is the unreliability of your witness, Ungolim. Blades are a drake a dozen. Who's to say it wasn't some other idiot in uniform?"

The look in Ungolim's eyes could very well have shattered stone.

"Last summer, a Blade by the name of Renius Sectubin poked his nose where it wasn't wanted. The Night Mother called upon me to… remedy the situation. Two months later I returned to Bruma on contract to find him drinking in the Tap and Tack. I followed that man for _months_, Lachance. I would know him by the cadence of his footsteps in the dark—I would certainly recognize him by his face." His eyes flashed dangerously, one hand pressed against the dagger at his side in warning. "And if I failed to kill him, then our Mother is a liar."

Lucien digested this, eyes following the curve of his alembic. This was an… interesting development. He wasn't entirely sure he believed it, but it was something at least. A sliver of hope. If he found this girl—if by some miracle she could _resurrect_ their Family rather than simply reanimating them…

Slowly, he turned and made his way back to his seat, smiling ever so slightly as Ungolim watched him with the same unreadable expression as before.

"Tell me, Ungolim," he said calmly, folding gloved hands in front of him. "So there are dead Blades walking around—I can believe that. But how do we know this… girl of yours isn't simply a clever whore taking credit from a temple priest?"

Ungolim's expression never changed and Lucien knew he was being studied, his reaction gauged against what little Ungolim knew of the traitor.

"That's what I'm sending you to find out, Lachance," he said at last. "I want you to keep your Silencer well away from Bruma until you can tell me what it is she's good for."

"And how exactly will I know what she's good for?" He leaned back until his chair hit the wall behind him, propping booted feet on the table. "Apparently, this isn't a service widely advertised."

"If you are refusing a direct order, Lachance, _say so_," Ungolim snapped, his patience fading quickly. "I would much rather kill you now and task someone else with this than spend the rest of the night arguing with you."

Lucien only smiled.

"I am refusing nothing," he said pleasantly, spreading his hands in a gesture of feigned warmth. "I am simply _suggesting_ that the Black Hand hasn't quite thought its plan through."

Ungolim arched an eyebrow, a smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth and Lucien braced himself.

"I should think you'd be glad for the opportunity to prove yourself loyal."

The words hit exactly where they were meant to and even expecting it, it was only through sheer force of will that Lucien managed to keep his face from betraying just how much he'd enjoylighting the little bastard on fire.

"_Loyal_?" he managed at last, just barely sounding civil. "My father was managing this guild hall when youwere still in _Valenwood_. The entirety of my life has been spent devoted to Sithis."

"Or so it appears," Ungolim chuckled, leaning back in much the same way Lucien had only moments before. "You'll find that rarely do the two coincide."

Lucien took a deep breath through his nose, unclenched his jaw and sat back, forcibly clearing his mind. The Black Hand had gone mad. This was not news to him. He'd been waiting for Ungolim to do something stupid and get himself killed for months now. It was only a matter of time before the lot of them collapsed in a burning pile of rubble. Daedric invasion, hell. He was half convinced the Kvatch guildhall had simply _imploded_ and taken the city with it.

"Then for the sake of argument, let's say she is capable of resurrection. And if I should find her… unsympathetic to our cause?" Lucien said at last.

"Convince her," he said, smirking as he stood and made his way for the ladder. "Use the _Lachance charm_. I was under the impression that you could… what was it? Win over any women in Tamriel?"

*

After the eighth hour jolting along atop Shadowmere, Lucien decided he really wouldn't mind if Ungolim were to suddenly die a horrific death. Now that he really started thinking about it, there was absolutely nothing he'd miss about the nasty little blighter. Sure, it was amusing to watch him drink Arquen under the table every time either one of them found something remotely resembling alcohol. But seeing as how Lucien was traversing the globe _again,_ running a godsdamned fool's errand for some harebrained scheme of Ungolim's _again_, he wasn't in a forgiving frame of mind.

_Necromancy… _Sweet _Sithis._

Lucien sighed irritably and swept his wind-scattered hair out of his face for the eighty-second time that day before wrenching Shadowmere back onto the road. He knew full well there had been a forester trailing him for the last few miles, but he had far better things to do than duck into the trees and wait for his hellspawn horse to finish ravaging Legionaire mounts. Neither did he especially want to stop and explain just what he was doing in the middle of a fetching heat-wave, riding a black horse while dressed in black and dying of heatstroke.

Times like this Lucien almost envied his Silencer. Even if the strange woman was about to find herself on the wrong end of a Necromancer's staff, at least she hadn't been sent to _make friends_ with one. And Lucien wasn't sure when the hell the Black Hand had gotten together to decide that _raising the corpses _of their fallen family members was the best way to catch the traitor, but he must have been drunk out of his head and half comatose besides to have ever agreed to it.

Fetching traitor. When he caught the bastard, he was going to string the man up by his own entrails, and… Lucien stopped, his train of thought wandering off as he caught sight of the signpost pointing back to Bruma and the little plank under it that said in rough-hewn script:

**Welcome to Stonebriar**

Slowing Shadowmere to a trot, Lucien followed the sign's arrow. The path wasn't especially long, branching away from the main and delving northeast into the circle of rocks. And there, in the center of the circle was a little stone house someone had gone to great pains to whitewash, apple-red shutters open to the unnatural heat while a tiny stable hunched nearby, shading a single, dappled mare. Lucien sat back in the saddle, taking in the quaint little cottage and tidy herb garden and knew suddenly and without a doubt that he had ridden eight frustrating, uncomfortable hours for nothing.


	2. Chapter Two

**Stonebriar**

**Chapter Two**

*

Lucien dismounted as the lady he'd been sent for rounded the corner of the house with a basket full of golden sedge under one arm, pushing sweat-stuck brown hair from her eyes. She looked… well, human. And that was nearly all Lucien could say for her. She was too small for a Nord and despite the vaguely Bosmeri tilt of her cheekbones, she was far too heavy-set to be the least bit Mer. She didn't have the bearing or broad shoulders of an Imperial either though and she was… oddly sturdier than any Breton he'd ever known.

"Oh, hello!" she called, catching sight of him. "Not an emergency, I hope."

At least she practiced some sort of medicine to concern herself with emergencies. That was promising even if the woman herself looked something like a mud-golem. Lucien smiled, tried to look charming and when that failed, settled for looking less irritated instead.

"More of a… social call, actually," he replied, sweeping a hand through windswept hair in an attempt to get it somewhere close to normal.

"Well, stable your horse and come in before you pass out." She laughed then, sounding strangely like wind chimes and it was the only really attractive thing he'd noted about her so far. "You look ready to drop in this heat."

And with that she swept inside the house, leaving Lucien wondering just what sort of self-respecting Necromancer wore grass-green skirts.

*

She wasn't especially unattractive actually, Lucien noted upon entering the house. The woman possessed an odd jumble of features to be sure, but together the effect was… well, not exotic—nor was she especially beautiful either. But she was… _interesting_.

"Oh, sit anywhere you like," she said, glancing at him as she rinsed her golden sedge in a large basin by the smoldering fireplace.

Lucien smiled back at her, taking in the painstakingly tidy little house with its well-made if simple furniture. It was packed to the thatching with all sorts of knick-knacks and baubles, the rafters themselves playing host to a number of drying herbs. And yet looking around, it was obvious absolutely everything had a place. Mages, now—mages were disorganized, books and shed robes and old magic monthlies strewn about their living quarters. Which meant Ungolim was at least partly right about this woman. She was a healer, everything in its place for a midnight panic.

"I see I was right in coming here," Lucien said at last in a comforting sort of purr. He wanted this woman to believe she could trust him—to fall into his arms willing and ready to do whatever it was he asked of her.

But she only wiped her hands on the apron that hung from a notch in the wall and cocked an eyebrow at him.

"I highly doubt you didn't know my profession when you rode all the way from wherever it is they don't realize Bruma has a summer like the rest of Cyrodil," she told him, looking vaguely amused as she dropped into the chair across from him. "Where are you from, if you don't mind my asking?"

Lucien leaned back in his chair, gauging the look in her eyes and the way she seemed to take in everything about him as if she knew the answers already. For a brief moment he wondered if Ungolim had spoken to her before he arrived, or if she was simply clever enough to make the connection herself. It was possible she'd dealt with assassins before. Hell, if Ungolim was right, she'd worked with a number of the assassinated.

Honesty then—or as close as he ever came to it—was likely the best plan of action.

"Cheydinhal. And I'm afraid you must forgive me my horrible manners," he said with a small smile, offering his hand. "My name is Luc Lalaus."

She smiled back, but the look in her eyes never left and Lucien wasn't convinced she believed him.

"Eloe."

Lucien tested the name in his mind, hefting the weight of it on his tongue.

"Just Eloe?" he asked, meeting her eyes with a look that whispered _you can trust me_, her hand still cradled in his. But the woman only smiled and retrieved her hand with an arch of her brows, leaving him wondering still just what sort of strange half-breed she was. _Eloe_. The name said nothing about her—not Imperial, Nord or Breton.

"That's right," she said and Lucien swore the glint in her eyes was almost mischievous.

"No family name?" He grinned and leaned forward, testing the water. "No… allegiances?"

Eloe laughed and stood, crossing the room to fill a teakettle from the strange pump in the corner.

"I'm afraid I haven't got a family name, Mr. Lalaus. Though the old Skyrim Nords in Bruma call me Dirt-Watcher." She stopped and grinned back at him, showing charmingly crooked white teeth. "I expect that's the sort of unfortunate name that sticks, isn't it?"

"Surely _Dirt-Watcher_ isn't an appropriate name for a woman of your…" he gestured around at the tidy little house, draping himself over the back of the chair, his eyes never leaving hers, "considerable _talents_."

But the woman remained totally unaffected by his sex appeal, only pausing to shrug before sweeping off to the opposite end of the tiny house.

"It _is_ actually rather appropriate if you think about it," she said, pulling a few leaves off the plants hanging from the ceiling. "And it's something of an honor to have earned a name amongst the Nords."

Lucien murmured something that could have passed for agreement, watching as the woman bustled around the room, gathering a tiny handful of miscellaneous herbs from the ceiling into a square of cotton.

This was pointless. A total exercise in frivolity. He'd had hope before—before he'd left his nice, cool fort to ride eight godsdamned in searing heat so he could sit at… at some sort of _witch's_ kitchen table and watch her make _tea_. But it was becoming painfully clear this was no more than a fool's errand. Ungolim hadn't sent him here because this woman could _help _them. He'd sent him here to get him out of the _way_. Hell, the Bosmer had probably spent most of last night practicing his indignant outrage for the fake Blade story. _Sithis_, as if there was nothing else in this world Lucien had to worry about.

Lucien paused in his thoughts, a cold weight dropping into the pit of his stomach.

_As if Ungolim wasn't Purifying the sanctuary in his absence._

And suddenly it made a hell of a lot of sense why it was so crucial _he_ be the one to ride eight hours to speak with a woman about herbs and honor. Because Ungolim had been hinting at the traitor rampaging through _his_ sanctuary for weeks now. And they both knew damn well there was nothing in the world wrong with his corner of the Family. The _real_ blight on the Hand had been taken to Anvil with that idiot fetcher Arius—but the half of the Hand that followed that pig Altmer had been collectively hinting at _his_ betrayal—and now here he was, halfway to nowhere having tea with a Necromancer.

_Sweet Sithis_.

"So tell me, Mr. Lalaus," the woman said, breaking him from his thoughts with that _tone_ in her voice that said in no uncertain terms _I know you're lying. _"Do you have a reason for seeking out my no doubt incredibly desirable company or are you just passing through?"

This woman was impossible, he decided. Trying to determine what she was thinking was like attempting to blast through a brick wall with a child's fire spell. But there was a flicker of quiet knowledge sitting in her eyes like a cherry stone in the bottom of a well and Lucien understood she knew far more about all of this than she was letting on.

"My Sister was…recently killed in an unfortunate accident," he told her, catching the flicker of recognition in her eyes the moment before she hid it behind a pleasant, empty smile. "I was told you could help."

"I can try," she said and while she was smiling, it was not the same open smile she'd given him before. "What sort of accident?"

She knew. Lucien studied her face without appearing to, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that this woman knew _exactly_ what he was and what he'd come here to do.

"She was murdered, actually," he said, watching as the woman's eyes darkened ever so slightly before darting to the teakettle over the fire. "It was made to look like an accident."

"Oh," she murmured, digesting this with a slow nod. Lucien seized the opportunity, leaning a little further over the table to catch her hand, returning her gaze to his.

"Know that my… Family and I will pay _handsomely_ for your services."

Lucien resisted the urge to smirk, watching as the woman swallowed, her eyes avoiding his. It was childish—especially with his Sanctuary unprotected—but Lucien couldn't help gloating privately to see the Lachance charm at work.

But then the woman sighed and stood, pushing her hair from her eyes again as she made her way to retrieve the kettle.

"I suppose," she said, sounding far more exhausted than lovesick. "Karinnarre isn't due for another few weeks and I'm sure Cirroc could take care of her in any case. I don't expect it will be an especially complicated birth."

Lucien smiled. He could care less about some knocked-up old Altmer, but to have succeeded—to have actually _accomplished_ Ungolim's insane errand.

"You, my dear," he murmured, rising from his chair, "are a _saint_. It will be a relief to finally find her murderer."

The woman turned suddenly, fixing him with a cold stare that could have gone a long way in embarrassing an ogre.

"What exactly are you after, sir?" she asked him, a note in her voice that did not bode well.

Lucien balked, not entirely sure how to deal with this turn of events. A moment before she'd been… well, not exactly _melting_ into his arms, exactly, but she'd certainly been _pliable_. And now the woman was like a sheet of _ice_.

"I was under the impression you were capable of…" he paused, trying to be delicate about it. "Healing the dead?"

Eloe pulled the teakettle from the fire, sloshing nearly boiling water over her nice wooden floors without ever realizing it.

"You've been talking to Olav the Idiot, haven't you?" she snapped, slamming it down onto the nearby table. "Probably drunk off his own still again. _Idiot_."

Lucien kept his face neutral, backing away from the suddenly dangerous woman wielding a teakettle and a bag of potentially deadly herbs.

"You are not a healer then?"

"A _healer_, yes." She managed to _slam_ the herbs into the kettle before rounding on him, hands moving in circles as she spoke. "I can patch this girl of yours up so that _her_ family doesn't have to look at her…_organs_ flopping about all over the place—so she can go to the grave in one piece without worrying about _Necromancers_ digging her up again, but what you're asking—"

She cut herself off abruptly, pressing a hand to her face. Lucien only watched her, not entirely sure what to make of this crazed woman. Magic dealers were often strange, in his experience, but this woman seemed to function in a hoard of contradictions. Her house was tidier than any wizard's den and yet she herself was some sort of strange… _melding_—emotions, races, _clutter_.

"I'm sorry," she said after an uncomfortable moment had passed, never meeting his eyes. "It's not your fault."

"Nevertheless, I am sorry to have offended you," Lucien purred easily, wondering if she'd do something unpleasant if he were to take her arm. "I can see how someone might confuse your unusual talent for Necromancy."

The woman glared at him from between her fingers, lips pursed into a thin line. But whatever she was thinking—and at the moment Lucien would have almost loved to know—she kept to herself.

"Try the Chapel in Cheydinhal," she said at last and he knew the old, half hidden anger in her words was not directed at him. "There's an Altmer there—Errandil. Calls himself a saint of Arkay. He should be able to help you."

Lucien wanted to strangle something. Or else set about cutting something fat and Ungolim shaped into impossibly small pieces.

"If that lunatic is the only option then I very much doubt there is anyone in Cyrodiil capable of doing what I need," he said, hiding his anger rather well all things considered. "Good day, madam."

Eloe only shrugged and Lucien could feel her eyes on his back as he strode for the door.

"I think you might find you need something else entirely tomorrow," she said. "Good day, Mr. Lalaus."

And Lucien was halfway to the stable before he realized her parting had sounded remarkably like _Lachance._


	3. Chapter Three

Author's Note: It's MUCH easier to understand Eloe if you read **Ark'ay the God** on the Imperial Library website. It's a book from Daggerfall. While you're there you can read **Arkay the Enemy** too, which while it's a Necromancy book, tells some stuff about Arkay that'll be important later.

Author's Hint: I post faster when people poke me.

Warning: This chapter is a little dark. Fair warning.

**Stonebriar**

**Chapter Three**

*

Perennia Draconis was dead.

The old woman had been a friend to her long before Eloe had realized how desperately she needed one. When she was still exhausting herself with every torn ligament and broken bone in Cloud Ruler because she knew damn well there wasn't a woman in Bruma about to let an _outsider_ deliver her child. And the incurable gossips in the Mages' Guild certainly hadn't helped—_speculating_ what exactly her work with the Blades entailed and if she was even working for them at all. The mountains were riddled with caves, after all, and any apparently unmarried woman willing to build her home so close to Capstone Cave… It had been Perennia to put a stop to that with clever gossip of her own, bragging about Eloe's clever potions, her magic, her _dirt-watching_ as the Nords came to call it.

Eloe stared blankly at the grave, faint strains of a Skyrim drinking song wafting out over Bruma's walls—still singed and stained from the ash the gate had belched out. What was the _point_, she wondered. Perennia had only had a year left. And perhaps to those without the eyes for death it looked as though she'd live another decade more, but what did the murder of one old woman bring to _anyone_?

Perhaps it had been a warning, she thought distantly. There was no question the strange man from Cheydinhal who had ridden in two months before was Dark Brotherhood. But she doubted he'd meant it as a warning even as she thought of it. Whoever he had been, whatever his real name—and Eloe had been dancing around people long enough to know the name rolled too easily from his tongue to be his own—he hadn't known enough of her to ask the right questions. Not that she'd have answered him. She knew better than to get involved in things like that. It was one thing to breathe a man's life back into him, but another thing entirely to do it for a murderer. Even one so soft spoken as he had been…

_Saint_ he'd called her, and Eloe almost smiled at that. He didn't know the _half_ of it. But he had known enough to make himself interesting. She'd trusted him a little. That had been her mistake. She'd seen the sideways honor in those beautiful eyes of his and she'd believed he was a man of his convictions. Though in his defense, he _had_ been honest with her in his way, speaking guardedly of his _Family _with a look that told her everything she needed to know. She'd trusted him to keep away from her—to take the rejection for what it was rather than an attack against his guild. He had not struck her as the sort of man to lash out in blind revenge.

But then, perhaps he hadn't lashed out. He had not returned to see her after all, in the two weeks since Perennia had died. If the old woman's death was meant to drive home just how easily he could do the same to her, it was an empty gesture without offering her some means of imagined safety.

Eloe sighed and turned away from the grave, running slender fingers through moss brown hair. No good would come from dwelling on it. Perennia was dead and gone, her grave empty. There was no soul there trapped under the soil. The laughing imp of a woman who'd brought her apple pies the day the old Skyrim boys had finally finished her house was long gone.

"I won't pretend to understand you, Arkay," she murmured, unable somehow to tear her eyes from the grave, even poised as she was to leave. "But I must say, if this was meant to be a message, you could have made it clearer."

But as was characteristic for Arkay, Eloe received no answer. For the first time in her life, she felt trapped. Always before she'd been able to come and go through city after city, slipping through provinces, wandering where she pleased. Highrock, Hammerfell, Skyrim… Even in Cyrodiil she'd moved with the wind. Until the sight of a family—a mother looking on as her husband waltzed with their tiny daughter perched on his feet—had made her painfully aware of her lot in life.

So she'd built a house in a circle of rocks where she could still hear the laughter of Ayleid children. And somewhere along the line, she'd stumbled onto friendship. She'd built a life, such as it was, and now… what did she really have besides pockets full of dust?

Nearby, a crow settled on the handle of a wheelbarrow, staring at her with black, river stone eyes. Eloe smiled to see it. As far as answers from the gods went, this was a big one.

"Come to spy on me, have you, my friend?" she asked. "I'm surprised Arkay troubled to send you at all. No worries. I'm not about to dig her up."

The crow cocked its head and hacked something that sounded almost like a word in her direction.

"I understand, you know," she said, more to herself than the bird. "A death I do not see is simply a life whose length Arkay has revised."

She turned, walking towards her horse as she munched contentedly on grass nearby.

"But that doesn't mean I believe you have any more idea of what you're doing than I do," she said, directing her words towards the sky with a wry smirk, "I half expect you're making it up as you go along."

Behind her, the crow _laughed _and took to the sky. Eloe mounted her horse and watched it go—north towards Skyrim—and wondered if she shouldn't have asked it something profound.

Probably not, she decided, guiding her horse onto the packed dirt road. Speaking to birds usually left her with more questions than answers and feeling like an idiot besides. Eloe smiled, shaking her head.

"I could have been born to Julianos," she said, leaning down to pat her horse's neck. "Devoting my life to _books _would have been easy. But to spend my life looking after _people?_ Millie, I'm still not even certain people _want_ looking after."

*

The worst thing about Bruma, Eloe decided, was the unpredictability of the weather. Normally it was cold. She liked the cold. Hell, that's why she'd _stayed_. No need to waste energy freezing a room for emergencies. No need to risk dying of heat-stroke every time she needed to brew a potion in the middle of summer. But _this—_this was _insane_. Bruma had a summer, yes. Sometimes, it even got hot enough to where the only snow dusted Cloud Ruler Temple. But now? Now there wasn't even snow on _Gnoll Mountain_, there hadn't been so much as a _suggestion_ of rain in _weeks_ and not only was her garden dying at an alarming rate, but the _Count of Skingrad _needed a potion to protect him from the sun and he needed it _now_.

And, Eloe realized as she stepped out of the house with a basket on her arm, there was a strange horse in her yard, trampling what was left of her poor, sun mangled herbs. _Why_, she wondered vaguely to herself, _does this sort of thing always happen to me?_

She didn't like horses, especially. Or, at least, she tended not to like any horse she hadn't helped to foal. Millie had been with her since she'd been just a wee thing and she was sweet and spoiled for it. This horse… Eloe half suspected _this_ horse had never been broken. She was wearing a bridle, certainly, but her saddle was missing, a sheen of sweat hanging like mist on her black flanks and she looked _wild_.

And then the horse turned to regard her out of a single, too-intelligent ruby eye and Eloe froze, realizing she'd seen this strange horse before. But the road was empty—had been more or less deserted for a week now what with the _heat—_and there was no sign of an assassin wandering her yard.

"Hello?" she called just in case, hoping she wouldn't have to be the one to catch the strange horse currently massacring her cabbages. But no reply came and Eloe sighed, half wishing there _was_ an assassin hiding somewhere in the shadows of the barn with the intent to kill her. After Perennia's pointless murder and _this_—a maddened horse in her yard scaring the daylights out of her Millie—she had a few choice words ready for her assassin, the majority of which involved a frying pan to the head for _illustration_.

With a long suffering sigh, Eloe ducked back into the house for an apple and returned, leaving her basket by the door as she crept forward, fruit outstretched.

"There now, lovie," she soothed, creeping just close enough to soothe a spell for calm into the horse's flank. "Easy. Have an apple and be still."

The horse snorted but stopped her wild prancing, taking the apple from her hand and leaving the fingers behind with practiced restraint.

"He may be a murdering idiot, but at least he takes care of you," Eloe muttered, grabbing the oddly frayed remains of the horse's bridle to lead her into the stable. "I'll put you up for now, but if your master doesn't show up within the week, know that you'll fetch a fine price at market."

And then, at the feeling of a soft nose nuzzling against her neck with the intent of finding a particularly tender place to bite, "I think I shall call you Jeanne. You share her temperament."

*

The next morning found Millie sleeping with her head arched over the stall to better rest on Jeanne's back—the latter horse tolerating it with a long suffering stare in Eloe's direction—but no soft-spoken assassin in sight. Eloe sighed and set about feeding both horses, wondering if she'd eventually have to risk selling an assassin's horse.

She didn't want to. If by some chance the man hadn't been killed and showed up to reclaim his mount, she didn't want the Wildeye Stable hands getting the worst end of that bargain. But she certainly didn't have the drakes to put the wicked beast up for free and sending it back to Cheydinhal on its own wasn't much of an option. Obviously, Jeanne was about as keen on making the journey back as her master had been to come. Chances were she'd make it as far as Toadstool Hollow and come trotting back the next day for apples and a good brushing.

"I will deal with you tomorrow," she told Jeanne, distracting the horse with oats so she could work the dirt out of her coat. "I have far more uses for ingredients than the ingredients themselves and if I don't go picking today, I'll have an angry mob beating down my door by tomorrow."

Eloe finished cleaning the horse enough to make her comfortable before slipping out of her stall and around to Millie's, patting her neck as she snuck the horse a sugar cube Jeanne couldn't see.

"I'm afraid it's too hot to take you today, my dear. You'll roll in my ectoplasm again and those old Ayleids are already cranky with me without my asking for more."

The horse snorted, eyeing the box of apples in the corner of the barn with a hopeful look Eloe couldn't resist.

"Spoiled rotten, you are," she snapped affectionately, retrieving an apple for both horses. "You'd best be ready to run up to Cloud Ruler when I return. I am _not_ climbing that hill again simply because you'd rather try climbing Perennia's apple trees."

And musing to herself that she should probably check Perennia's apple trees on the way home, Eloe set off for Rielle.

*

Her nearest neighbor was in Bruma now. Strange then that she could hear people arguing.

Eloe frowned as she slipped out of Rielle, closing the doors behind her on the skeleton of an over-affectionate Ayleid. She had to slip down into the more damaged halls to find the moss she'd came for so it was too late now to head up to Cloud Ruler. But then, it was a little late for travelers to be on the road too and they didn't quite sound as though they were arguing about which way the map pointed. They sounded more as though…

As though they were arguing in Perennia's garden, actually.

Curious now and wondering if the old woman's children had come home to bicker over her grave, Eloe crept down from Rielle, keeping her shadow scattered in the grass and her body well behind the rocks. It was possible that it was only Andreas' booming voice she heard but she'd had angry villages turned on her often enough before to be cautious when it came to shouting men. Those who dealt in life and death were always the first to take the blame in a tragedy.

But as Eloe grew closer to the garden, she could see the figures there were not those she'd been expecting. All of them were dressed in black—hoods up despite the heat and quickly fading light—surrounding a single man with painful magic arching through their fingers. Immediately, Eloe crouched behind the heavy boulders that watched the north facing wall of Perennia's house and froze.

She knew that man—the one they all surrounded with the long dark hair and oddly honest eyes. The one who'd come to see her for a miracle—whose horse she'd been threatening to sell.

"The dead drops were _switched_!" she heard him snarl, the suggestion of a spell creeping up his arms. "My Silencer—"

"Your Silencer was only following _orders_, Lachance," a woman laughed without humor—an Altmer or slender Nord. "Do you think us so stupid as to believe your lies?"

"You think yourselves intelligent?" He backed up a step, the setting sun catching the lines of his face. He looked ill, sick with fear and the knowledge he would not come out of this alive, and she had never wanted more badly in her life to intervene. "The traitor still rampages through the Brotherhood, killing off our number and you come to me—_accusing_ me—speaking of _intelligence_."

Eloe closed her eyes, mouthing to Arkay in rapid, silent prayer. She was not meant to intervene. Arkay's doctrine stated that his children were to strive to maintain the balance of the world—_never give favor or curse_ as the order went. _But_ _this wasn't right_. Watching as they circled around him like cliffracers over a kill, Eloe knew in the heart of her being that this man was not meant to die tonight.

"And yet your Sanctuary has been locked down," a man this time, possibly Breton. "Everyone safe and sound against the Purification the Night Mother demanded of you."

"_Ungolim_ demanded it," her assassin spat. "And Ungolim was a reckless idiot with no knowledge of the Brotherhood."

Someone laughed and a blade flashed in the quickly approaching shadows.

"No doubt you know it intimately, what with your manipulating it to serve your hellish purposes. You will pay for what you've done, Lachance. Your silver tongue cannot help you here."

The Altmer woman laughed, throwing back her hood.

"I would suggest we cut it out, but you know, I rather like the idea of hearing you _beg_."

Eloe could not tear her eyes away from the scene unfolding in Perennia's garden—the garden where she'd sat only a few scant months before, laughing about Mages' Guild gossip with the old woman as they picked tomatoes. The familiar words of prayer melted from her tongue, losing their shape altogether.

_Arkay, I do not understand you. I do not understand this. It is our duty to maintain order, but any idiot with eyes can see this isn't right. Why do you not interfere? _

She wanted to leap out and help him, but she was rooted to the spot with fear, watching in wide-eyed horror as the first spell hit home and began to dissolve the walls of his magicka. She could not help him. These were not children that would be frightened off by an angry word. These were trained assassins intent on killing a man they saw as a traitor. She'd be little more than a momentary distraction. Her art was Restoration, not Destruction. She could barely light a candle to work by, let alone _save him_.

_Errandil says the world is balanced, but I cannot believe him. He says we are not meant use our Gift—that it is only a test on the path to becoming like you—but how can we be sure of _any_ decision when you yourself are not?_

There were more blades flashing in the dying sun now and Eloe caught the edge of a Burden spell before it shattered through the remnants of her assassin's fading shields. Someone lashed out, laughing—the sound of which left Eloe shaking, wanting desperately to run but unable to move.

_They will kill him. They have come here to kill him, and they will not leave until he is dead. But this is not his time. I know there is no balance. I've seen too many things to believe everything happens as you plan it. But is it not my duty then to restore the balance? If I am to become like you—if I am truly a Saint of Arkay as they say—is that not my purpose?_

She could not run home. She could not risk being seen. They would kill her too. The bloodlust was evident in their eyes and while she was not afraid of death, Eloe was _terrified_ of pain. And her poor assassin… he fought like a cornered animal, knives spinning through his fingers, shooting what magic he could as he tried to regain his shields. But he fought without hope—without heed to his own injury. He did not want to escape, only to cause as much pain as he could before he died.

_The Dark Brotherhood killed Perennia before her time and now they're cutting down their own. There is a sickness among them you did not plan for. Something has happened—something has tipped what little balance we have. This is wrong._

A paralysis spell rocked through her assassin's shield and he hit the ground like a stone, face contorted in a mask of hatred.

"Quick," someone panted. "Mathieu, fetch the rope. The spell won't hold him long."

From her position behind the rock, Eloe could see the Altmer woman smile, pulling a new blade—this one enchanted with flame—from the depths of her robe.

"The spell will last a little while longer, I think. We've tired him out, after all. Let's play a little game while we wait." She grinned, the sun's last gasp reflecting from her teeth as she spun the dagger over his prone form with whip-like telekinesis. "Heads or tails?"

_If inaction is what it means to be a Saint, I cannot do it. I will not hide myself away, praising your name but doing nothing. There is no balance—it is not there to be maintained by inaction. I must act. _

Eloe closed her eyes, feeling time slip by her as the remnants of the Black Hand dragged her assassin into Perennia's house. She heard laughter, cursing and the sound of something heavy hitting stone.

And then the screaming began.


	4. Chapter Four

Author's Notes: Okay, so you're all aware of the fact that I'm an airhead, right? And that I have my reviews set to email alert so that when I check my email the whole "UPDATE NOW" thing is like a slap in the face? It's kinda necessary. Otherwise I forget when I last posted. So if it's been like a week and I haven't updated, just prod me. XD

**Stonebriar**

**Chapter Four**

*****

Eloe locked the barn doors behind her, her assassin's agonized screams still slipping through the cracks. It wasn't safe here. It certainly wasn't safe in the house. If they realized it was occupied, if they worried they had been observed, Eloe would be a quick and easy kill.

She wanted to go to Cloud Ruler. Or Bruma at the very least. They'd never seen her to look for her, after all. But then she couldn't leave the horses and neither could she take them. Her assassin's horse was far too distinctive. If they saw the hell spawned beast, they'd know. They'd wait for her to return if nothing else and she wasn't sure dissuading them with a cast iron skillet would work. Besides, the noise of two horses passing—hell, just getting them out of the barn—could attract attention and she was not ready to die again. Once had been more than enough.

Jeanne _glared_ at her, pacing from one side of the stall to the other, unearthly noises no horse should have been able to produce echoing from her foaming jaws. Eloe only watched her, feeling a sort of distant sympathy as she watched. She'd seen more dead bodies than she could easily count, had sat by dozens as they died, but to _hear_ such _pain…_

Millie came to meet her at the stall door, jittery and unnerved by the faint, tortured screaming and Jeanne's cries, butting her muzzle into Eloe's neck. Feeling close to tears and shaking besides, the woman pressed her cheek to Millie's, eyes closed as she traced tiny pictures in magicka through her fur.

And then the screaming _stopped_.

For a long while she held her breath, waiting for the next cry but nothing came. A horrible, sickening silence sprawled out in front of her and it was far, far worse. It felt like the world had stopped, her heart suspended, the air around her still and lifeless, just listening.

He was dead.

Eloe turned and crossed the barn, climbing the ladder to the hay loft with a growing sense of dread. She pulled it up behind her as quickly as she could, masking her life force when she'd finished with a twist of the hands.

"Let them see the shape of the horses and move on," she whispered to Arkay, shoving bales of hay into a semi-circle reminiscent of her childhood forts. "Let them see no human shape. Let them continue on without knowing there was someone close enough to hear."

She slipped inside the fort of hay and peered through a crack in the wall. She could only see a little of the road from here, but cast chameleon just in case. Should someone look her way and even _suspect_ they saw an eye between the slats of wood, she was a dead woman.

An hour passed before she heard Perennia's door crash open and peeked out of the wood to see a woman careen out in bloodstained black. Her hem was dripping, Eloe noticed, the world seeming very far away even as the thought occurred to her. The woman's mouth and hands were stained with blood, her hem raining dark droplets down onto the earth as she spun, laughing. The Dunmer joined her and together they waltzed around Perennia's house and into the apple grove before the old Imperial emerged to herd them back inside.

No one so much as glanced at her darkened house, and for that she was intensely grateful.

*

It was almost midnight when Eloe jerked out of an uneasy sleep at the sound of someone galloping down the road off in the distance. Recasting her spells as quickly as she could mange and hoping against hope it wasn't a Blade on his way home, she rose up on her haunches to stare through the splintered crack and out into the night.

A lone Dunmer woman was making her way down the road, perched atop a dappled half-breed that looked as though it had died the year before but was too damn _mean_ to let that stop it. The woman herself was cloaked from head to boot in dark leather, her only distinguishing feature the lock of fire-red hair peeking out from her hood. She was Dark Brotherhood as well, it would seem, but far too late for the party.

Eloe sank down against the wall, turning her back on the slim assassin. Suddenly she was very sure this night would never end. In a few hours she'd find herself picking her way down the path from Rielle again, listening to her assassin's last animal cries of pain over and over, the night repeating into infinity. She felt with a strange, absolute certainty that the sun would never rise again and just then no amount of whispered prayer could bring her comfort.

Closing her eyes, Eloe pulled her knees to her chest and pressed her face into the soft fabric of her skirt. Never in her life had she felt more like she had as a small child, struggling against the cascade of new magic and a birth blessing from the gods. Forces were at work here tonight far larger than herself and just at the moment, Eloe felt rather like a pebble caught in the tide.

For a long while she sat unmoving with her back against the splintering wood, just listening to the quiet passage of time. An indeterminable amount slipped by her before she heard horses on the road again and turned to look, watching as her assassin's four attackers rode off on night black horses, the latecomer close behind and struggling with her own.

Eloe counted them twice to be sure they'd left no one behind and waited to see if they'd return. But the road remained perfectly silent and she heaved a breath of relief, letting her spells fade as she picked her way towards the ladder on shaky legs. She thought of the crow Arkay had sent her weeks ago and wondered if she hadn't misconstrued his message.

"Arkay, I intend to help this man," she said aloud, pleased to note her voice didn't shake near as badly as her hands. "If this gift of yours is only meant as a test of restraint, you'd best make that clear now. I may be mortal, but I can see this isn't right."

She waited a moment, lowering the ladder back down into the niche that had kept it in place since the barn had been built, but no message came. Holding her skirts in one hand as she climbed down, Eloe spared a pat for the horses before slipping out into the night.

No crow. No sign. Not even a patch of moonlight in the shape of a tomb.

Nothing.

Eloe smiled, though it wavered slightly, and made her way into the house to change.

"Akatosh answers prayers by turning his priests into giant golden dragons," she told the air, struggling out of her skirts and into the soft cotton pants she wore for heavy lifting. "Julianos leaves meaningful books lying about with important passages underlined. But you—_you _just sit up there and _watch_, you voyeur. You could at least give me a meaningful _look_ in the right direction, couldn't you?"

Outside, the wind rattled against the shutters and it almost sounded as though someone were laughing.

*

Perennia's painstakingly tidy house was a horrible mess.

Strangely, it was the only thing Eloe could think of, even as she rushed out of Applewatch to empty her stomach in the nearby shrubs. The house would never be the same again. The stains would never come out. Perennia would have been furious.

Eloe wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and steeled herself, opening her eyes against the image of blood and death that had seared itself to her eyelids. She had work to do. There was a slim chance those… _creatures_ would be back again, and she needed to get her assassin pieced together enough to move him without worrying about losing bits on the way.

"I have seen worse," she told herself, pulling her hair back into a tight bun as she turned to face the house. "I am a priestess of Arkay and I have seen and managed far worse than this."

She returned to the house in long, determined strides and paused to take in what needed to be done. First, she needed a knife or something to cut him down, and once she found that, she needed something sturdy enough to stand on. They'd broken all of Perennia's nice chairs, but she couldn't reach the rope that held him on his head without something to stand on.

_I heard him dying… I heard his pain. He was alive through all of this—alive and conscious._

The table was sturdy enough. A bit of one leg looked as though it might give way sometime soon, but it would hold her long enough to cut the rope at least. Eloe crossed the room to take a knife from one of Perennia's kitchen drawers and pushed the table into place. She tried to ease her assassin down gently, but even with her telekinesis pressing up on his shoulders, he hit the ground like a rock.

_Sweet Arkay, are those bite marks? Did they…? Oh gods…_

Eloe pushed the table back into the corner where it belonged before crouching down beside him, one hand easing away the lines of pain on what was left of his poor, once handsome face. It took her a moment to remember the name his attackers had called him by, but when she had it, she knelt down to speak in the one ear he had left.

"_Lachance_," she called softly, casting her voice into the drift. "Don't slip too far from me—I intend on dragging you back out, gods willing."

"_Gods_," she heard him snort, his voice whispering back to her from death. "_I serve Sithis."_

*

They'd cut off nearly every bit of him that could be easily removed. She found his robes a blood soaked pile in the corner, hiding within them two fingers, a missing chunk of his cheek and… Eloe closed her eyes against the sudden rush of nausea, gripping hard at a clean portion of the wall.

_I hope you were dead for that, my friend. I truly hope they spared you that. _

Working as quickly and efficiently as she could, Eloe swept through the house, gathering the missing bits of him together. Before, she'd thought she could work here. Not for long—just enough to get him somewhat put together. But the copper stench of blood and death and _fear_ in the air would haunt her dreams for weeks to come, and Eloe had to duck outside twice before she could even finish collecting his missing pieces.

_They enjoyed this. Your suffering, your pain—they _enjoyed_ it. And you worked with these people. _

Eloe escaped the house again to take heaving breaths of fresh air before making her way around the building to retrieve the wheelbarrow from the orchard and a bag for the pieces of him easily lost.

_Were you like them, I wonder? Am I risking everything for a man who will kill me in my sleep and _enjoy_ it? Who would… _devour _parts of me?_

Her stomach jumped and threatened to turn itself inside out again at the memory of the Altmer woman, her face stained with blood. Time flowed around her as she stood there with the grove's high grass licking at her ankles like rivulets of water.

For a moment, she was jealous of Errandil's certainty in life. He _knew_ without a doubt that his place in life was to maintain the balance by showing no favor and uttering no curse. He truly believed that by teaching others to do the same, the world would remain in perfect harmony. But the world was not harmonious. Eloe could hear the discordant notes in her _sleep_. Each misplaced death, each unwanted child called out to her, begging her to set them right again.

But this man was not calling her—he was _wrenching_ her, demanding her undivided attention with that silver graveled voice of his, one hand clenched around her soul. And even as Eloe approached the house with the wheelbarrow in tow, her hands were shaking. She had not done this in quite some time—almost two years since she'd soothed Steffan back into his body and that had not been a proper resurrection. He'd been haunting her, whispering her name in the dark hours of the night as he passed through the moonlight. Slipping him back into his body had been as easy as dressing herself.

Not like her assassin, his fate twined around her neck like a garrote. He would need to be fished from the abyss. His return would likely be as painful as his passing—for both of them. But Eloe was sure… no, she wasn't sure—she was never really sure when it came to the gods—but she thought she could feel Arkay smiling down at her, a sliver of something like resolve trickling into her heart as she opened the door to Applewatch again.

She was doing the right thing.

*

The sun never rose for Eloe. She had taken her assassin down into the secret level that separated her house from the root cellar where the sun could not reach her. A constant light spell flickered and danced along the low ceiling as she pieced the man back together, her every thought bent with singular intensity on the task at hand.

Hours slipped past in rapid succession without her noticing. She worked as much magicka into him as she could bear to lose and a little more besides. Severed appendages were connected as though they'd never been lost, bits of missing organs re-grown

around what Eloe refused to think of as bite marks, his gaping wounds stitched up again. In the end, she hadn't been able to patch as many of his broken bones as she would have liked, but those she could not, she set on the way to mending.

It was only when even the fizzle of light spell above her took all her concentration to maintain that Eloe finally pulled back to check her work, lightheaded with hunger and exhaustion. Her assassin was beautiful, she noted to herself in a rare moment of distracted honesty. The knife-twist of his lips, the breadth of his jaw, the curve of his muscles—every arch and bow of his body… Even with his heart only just set back to beating and what little rot there'd been freshly chased away, it was obvious the deadly grace this man was capable of.

Eloe closed her eyes a moment, shaking away the old butterflies that had settled in her stomach and settled herself on the bed next to him, a golden glow beginning to work its way up her arms.

"Are you ready?" she asked, her voice just barely reaching the other side.

But she heard his silken laughter nonetheless, her mind half with the dead already, and shivered when he spoke.

"_Always_."

And suddenly she could feel the consuming _heat _of his soul pressed flush against her own, and without warning—without pausing to collect what little magicka she'd saved—Eloe reached into the drift.


	5. Chapter Five

**Stonebriar**

**Chapter Five**

*****

Lucien woke by degrees, pain throbbing through his body like a badly strung harp. But pain was certainly an interesting development, at any rate. Especially as the last thing he remembered was… well, the last thing he remembered was not something he wanted to think about. But he was fairly certain he'd been dead. Only he was also fairly certain the pain had _stopped_ at some point, and the pain he'd been in—hell, the pain he _was_ in—wasn't the sort of trifling thing that just _buggered off_.

Slowly, Lucien tried to clench his hand, wondering vaguely if he _had _a hand and feeling like an outsider in his own body. His fingers curled ever so slightly, protesting the movement all the way and Lucien stopped suddenly.

He could feel every one of his fingers.

They were all there. Judging by the way they throbbed, some of his nails were missing and every finger was cracked, sprained or broken, but they were _there_. And yet he clearly remembered watching Arquen hack them off one by one as he clenched his tongue so hard between his teeth he thought he'd lose it as well.

Had his Silencer arrived? And was she better at magic than he'd thought? Generally the only thing the strange girl was good at was lighting things on fire. But Lucien was rather certain he was laying on a bed of all things, with all his limbs intact and—

He stopped, keeping his breathing even through force of will.

And someone was in the room with him.

Lucien knew without moving that none of his usual weapons would be anywhere close at hand. They'd stripped him down and disarmed him hours before he'd died—had he died?—and the only cloth against his skin was that of a thin cotton sheet. Gritting his teeth, he twitched uncooperative fingers in the pattern of a simple fire spell and made to push himself up from the bed, three things happening at once.

One, agonizing pain seared through his stomach in a blinding flash, forcing him back down to the bed with a stifled cry. Two, absolutely no magic whatsoever came to his call. And three, he woke the person he'd so recently attempted to attack.

"What did you hope to accomplish just then exactly?" a voice asked mere inches to his left—low, feminine and decidedly irritated.

Lucien opened his eyes again with some effort and turned to look at her as much as he was able, curses dying on his lips. He knew her. There was no mistaking that woman with her strange, unplaceable features and nowhere accent. She was glowing now as she leaned over him, annoyance plain on her face as she swept wispy strands of hair from her eyes. Strangely, Lucien felt like laughing.

He settled for a pained smirk instead, searching her features through the shadows.

"And here you told me you couldn't raise the dead," he managed, his voice breaking.

"And you told me your name was Lalaus." She smiled, looking tired and vaguely smug as she pressed a gentle spell into his stomach and heaved herself up from the chair with a monumental effort. "Make of that what you will."

He watched with something of a frown as she steadied herself against the wall, eyes closed, the glow around her shifting like the center of a flame, casting shadows on the sheets. The church loony in Cheydinhal glowed like that, he realized, watching her fight with her own desperate urge to slip into unconsciousness. Only the crazy Altmer's glow had looked far more like a light spell than the golden wash of spirit flame flickering down this woman's arms.

"Go to sleep, Mr. Lachance," she murmured, before he could put a voice to the litany of questions running through his head. "I haven't the magic to keep us both awake, I'm afraid."

And without any more warning than that, Lucien found himself thrust back into the abyss.

*

When he woke again, it was with the vague awareness of a woman's fingers forcing healing magic under his skin and the knowledge that a good deal of time had passed since he'd last been conscious. He kept his breathing as even as it'd been before he woke, cracking his eyes open to glance sidelong at the woman painting magic on his chest. Bringing him back from… from something close to death anyway, was obviously taking its toll on her. She looked ill—skin like new tallow in the shadows, dark circles ringing her eyes. But she stayed by his side none the less, knitting his ribs back into place with tingling strands of careful magic, the pain in his abdomen lessening with every pass of those slender fingers, looking strangely beautiful with the golden fire flickering over her skin.

"You have an artist's hands," he murmured, happy to find his voice was something close to normal now.

The woman—Eloe, he remembered with some force of will—looked up at him as though she'd somehow forgotten he was there at all, her eyes searching his face. After a moment she paused in her magic and sat back, one eyebrow cocked.

"Mangled past recognition and your first thought upon waking is to comment on my hands?" she asked him with something approaching a smile, though she still sounded like a woman pulled from her dream. "Exactly what sort of man are you, Mr. Lachance?"

Lucien smiled back at her, ghosting his fingers over hers while trying to look as non-threatening possible.

"Please," he said, holding her gaze. "Call me Lucien."

He wanted to know more about this woman. Months ago, she'd said raising the dead was impossible, but he knew... she'd stopped actually, he realized, breaking off his chain of thought. She'd been about to say the words, about to say _what you're asking is impossible_, but she'd cut herself off and told him to find Errandil. At the time he'd barely given it a thought. After all, he'd _known_ what he was asking was impossible.

But what if that wasn't what she'd been about to say at all?

"I don't imagine you're the sort of man that takes well to bed rest, Lucien," she told him, sounding like every other priestess he'd ever known. "But I don't think you'll be able to walk for the next few days at least. Your knees especially…"

She stopped and Lucien saw that suddenly she was very far away, with a look like fear on her face. But then the moment passed and she swallowed hard, shaking her head as though whatever thought had plagued her was no worse than a bothersome fly.

"Your knees have too much magic in them to bear your weight just yet," she finished and Lucien knew damn well that was not what she'd been about to say and couldn't help but smirk.

She was _bothered_ by his death. This woman who he barely knew was… was close enough to have witnessed the attack, he realized. She lived a stone's throw away from Applewatch and the attack had not been especially silent.

She'd likely heard him die.

"If I could ask, madam? Why waste your energies on me?" he asked, regarding her now with some interest. "What use am I to you?"

And there it was again. The haunted look passed over her face and she turned away from him to cross the room, fiddling with something metallic he couldn't see. The noise brought back a sudden, painful image of heated tongs and Lucien had to clench his teeth to keep from groping for a spell.

"Your death was not the will of Arkay," she told him and her voice sounded flat and hollow. "There is some sickness in your guild tampering with fate."

Slowly, Lucien ignored the protests of his muscles and pushed himself upright, regarding the witch woman with a measure of suspicion.

"You serve Arkay," he said at last. "And yet you would risk your life for a son of Sithis? You must excuse me if I find your answer rather lacking in its conviction."

But Eloe only shook her head and he realized that there was a fire flicking through her own and that the woman herself appeared to be making _tea_ of all things.

"Arkay brings every soul into this world, Mr. Lachance. And supposedly every soul maintains the balance. Every end should herald a new beginning."

_Supposedly. Should. _Lucien seized on her wording, sensing a weakness.

"Having a crisis of faith, are we?" he purred, eyes stroking along her generous curves as she returned to his side. "Forgive me for mentioning it, my pet, but you don't seem entirely _convinced_."

But Eloe only stared at him with that inscrutable look of hers and handed him a steaming mug of some sort of broth.

"You need to eat," she told him simply. "But then your stomach wasn't in the best of shape, so you'll likely throw it up again. Thus the bucket."

Lucien searched her eyes, trying to find some glimmer of emotion there, but she had walled herself away from him. Whatever her motives, whatever had prompted her to wade into the void after him, he wasn't about to find it now.

He smiled instead, taking the mug from her with fingers that would barely bend and wondered if she'd notice a charm spell. But even as the thought occurred to him, what little magic he possessed lurched in the very pit of his being and Lucien was left clenching his teeth against the pain, Eloe staring down at him, one eyebrow arched with a distrustful look in her eyes.

"You have no magic of your own at the moment, Mr. Lachance. Mine is the only thing keeping you alive. Keep that in mind next time it occurs to you to charm me."

She turned then and heading for the stairs, a look of half masked anger flickering on her face. Lucien couldn't help smiling as he watched her go, admiring the curve of her hips in the soft breeches she wore.

He'd always loved a challenge.

*

Only when she was upstairs with the trapdoor safely closed behind her did Eloe allow herself to lower her guard, collapsing into a kitchen chair with a sigh. She felt like a supreme idiot. She'd known better than to meddle. She wasn't a child just coming into her magic and gods-twisted sense of morality anymore. _She'd known better_. But she'd convinced herself this man was important. He'd had _decades_ stolen from him, after all, but he was still a murderer. Chances were she'd invited no end of trouble into her house when she took it on herself to save him. And for what? _Why_? So he could continue to serve this… Sithis character of his?

Eloe let her head fall to the table and tried to block out the world with her arms. She was an idiot. Yes, her murderer was necessary to whatever little balance they had—keeping the deaths in line with the births—but she was old enough to know full well that hadn't been her motivation. No, she'd…

She'd felt guilty, she realized with a jolt and pushed herself up from the table.

Everything happened for a reason. There was no use feeling _guilty_ about it. It wasn't her fault the man had fallen in with an idiot cult and it _certainly_ wasn't her fault said cult had decided him a traitor. But when he'd come to her asking for help, something in those dark eyes of his had drawn her. She'd felt… no, she'd _known_ he was important. And it was rare enough that a whisper from Arkay drew her to a person that she'd agreed to help him without much question. Until she'd heard what it was he'd wanted.

Except she'd done it in the end. She'd gone and bound her energies to a murderer she knew less than nothing about and until his soul was grounded enough to stay in his body where it belonged, they'd be stuck together.

Eloe closed her eyes again. In some back part of her mind, she could still hear him screaming. No words, no pleading. Just _pain_. Agonizing pain. And she knew she could have prevented it. If she'd have gone with him to raise up his little murderer, if she'd have gone looking for him when she found his horse… Such horrible pain. She'd never heard a man scream before. She'd never sat by and listened as someone was murdered. And the chunks of him that were missing, the burns and _teeth marks_…

No, she wasn't proud of it and she wasn't convinced she hadn't royally pissed off Arkay, but Eloe knew full well why she'd done it. She'd hoped that if she'd helped him—if she'd slipped him back into his body, the screaming would stop. But now, almost a week later with the man himself in her basement and already attempting charm spells, she wasn't entirely certain it ever would.


	6. Chapter Six

Author's Note: Lucien has clothes now. So just… yeah. Forget that he was naked.

**Stonebriar**

**Chapter Six**

*****

She had a reason, Lucien decided, watching as Eloe mixed herbs together beside the fireplace. She most certainly had a reason for helping him and it was _not_ because one of the Nine found him interesting. Though that was a disturbing thought in itself. The Nine made Lucien uneasy. And while charming priestesses into his bed had always been something of a hobby, he doubted any god found it irritating enough to… to what? Resurrect him and claim his soul? He'd sold his soul to Sithis long ago and while he owed this woman his life and could possibly be convinced return the favor, his heart was as black as the void.

This woman though—_she_ was interesting. Not only a child of Arkay, but one that glowed like an angry will-o-the-wisp whenever she overexerted herself. And she'd been overexerting herself with regularity for almost a week now for no better reason than _your death was not the will of Arkay._

Lucien smiled. His little saint was a horrible liar.

"I'm curious, my pet," he broke the silence at last, gazing over his book at her. "What exactly did you hope to accomplish by resurrecting me? For all you know I could kill you in your sleep."

Eloe shrugged and glanced back at him, tipping the contents of her bowl into the kettle next to her.

"I've told you before, Lucien. And I'm not your pet."

Lucien grinned.

"If only you said it with more conviction, I might believe you. But as it is, you're avoiding the question," he told her easily, resisting the urge to dig his knuckles into the aching muscle of his thigh.

"Because it's a question I've answered before." She pursed her lips, meeting his eyes for a moment. "I am a priestess of Arkay."

"And a truly hopeless liar." He smirked, holding her eyes with his own. "Honestly, do you think so little of me that you expect that pitiful excuse of yours to work?"

Eloe's eyes flashed and Lucien knew he'd won.

"Hit a nerve, have I?" he asked. "Am I not quite what you expected when you thought you'd have an attractive man lying helpless in your bedroom?"

"You're not quite what I expected from a man who would have been dead and rotting without me," she snapped, setting her mortal and pestle down just a little too hard on the wooden floor. "I would think you'd show a little gratitude."

Lucien grinned and leaned back into the wall of pillows behind him, looking for all the world like a stretching, dangerous cat.

"Madam, had I the stamina for it, I'd show you exactly how _grateful_ I am. Which is what you were rather hoping for when you brought me home, was it not?"

"There are those of us in the world capable of acting on something other than our own selfish motivations, you know."

And suddenly she was back to mixing with a vengeance. Ogre's teeth, Lucien decided, judging by the sound and was surprised to see her tip a fine powder into the kettle only a moment later. Obviously, this woman was yet again more than he'd given her credit for.

"I find rarely do people act unless there is something in it for them," he murmured, watching her motions with a predatory intensity he could tell she found unnerving. "Which begs the question, doesn't it? What _is_ in it for you? Do you think your… god will _reward_ you for saving the life of a murderer?"

Eloe shrugged and turned so that her back faced him. He licked his lips because she couldn't see, eyeing the nut brown hair in its prim little bun glinting with firelight. What would she do, he wondered, if he were to run his fingers through that hair? It wouldn't take much to sneak over and free it from its confines. But then, there were many other aspects of Eloe far more desperate to be _freed_.

"I expect nothing from Arkay or anyone."

Lucien smiled.

"A pity then I don't believe in saints."

_That_ gave her pause. Lucien watched as Eloe's spine stiffened, resisting the urge to smirk. He wanted to take her apart, disassemble her bit by bit and see what made her tick. And perhaps when he put her back together again, she'd be a little more savvy for it, a little less willing to believe in the all encompassing good of the Nine and a little more likely to see the world for what it was. He could use a woman like her. Even if she refused to use the more powerful of her gifts, she could be of _definite_ use to him.

"Neither do I," she said at last with a cold finality. "I believe in actions."

"You truly are having a…crisis of faith, aren't you?" he asked gently, watching her with a look that whispered _you can trust me_. "Such a shame someone as beautiful as yourself should find herself so… _tormented_."

But Eloe laughed suddenly, sweeping her hair out of her eyes as she turned to regard him with a cocked eyebrow.

"You really do think yourself quite the charmer, don't you?" she asked, with a look on any other woman Lucien might have considered a smirk. "I'm sorry to say I've seen far more impressive men of your ilk, Lucien."

He smiled, looking something close to dangerous in the glow of the fire.

"And yet your Blade and I obviously share something in common."

Whatever he was expecting, Lucien found Eloe defied expectation. She didn't so much as twitch, mixing her potion as serenely as she had the moment before.

"You can't believe anything Olav tells you."

"Olav?" Lucien laughed, arching a brow in her direction. "My darling, I know the mer that killed him."

She stopped then and turned, setting her bowl down very carefully.

"You realize that my abilities leave me in a very precarious situation, yes?" she asked calmly, looking him dead in the eyes with a fire in her own Lucien couldn't help but find attractive. "And that should you somehow put me into danger, I can sever the link that keeps you in your body with a thought?"

Lucien grinned. He'd known this woman would be a challenge, but for her to _threaten _him as though his life or death meant nothing to her. To do it with that pleasant almost-smile, her face revealing little more emotion than a stone wall? He wanted her. No, more than that—he had to have her. This woman, this _saint_ with her thousand facets intrigued him and Lucien hadn't been able to say that of any woman in far too long a time.

"And here I thought you were _boring_," he told her, feeling something like a schoolboy with his first crush. "I must say, I've never been quite so pleased to find myself wrong."

"Really? I'm surprised," she said and smiled, a picture of innocence. "And yet you obviously find yourself wrong so often."

"Only when it comes to you, my pet," he said and grinned, setting down his book.

"And matters of your guild, obviously." She flashed him an obscure look, returning to her potions. "Out of curiosity, why do you serve a god that doesn't care whether you live or die?"

He couldn't help but snort at that, shifting down in his bed, his back burning at the thought of sitting straight any longer.

"My dear, I doubt you are the sort of person who could ever understand Sithis."

Eloe laughed and when Lucien glanced over, he could have almost _sworn_ he saw mischief in those eyes.

"Does that mean you don't understand it yourself?"

"It means there's no way you could comprehend the…unfathomable _beauty_ of the perfect, cloudless midnight that is Sithis."

"He's the sort of thing that makes you run back in the house for a cloak and a light spell?" She laughed and slipped her teakettle onto the coals, the tension flowing from her shoulders. "This is why I don't work in the temples, you know. It's impossible to fight belief with logic."

Lucien arched a brow, resisting the urge to laugh at the fascinating creature before him. It wasn't much, but she was opening up a little—not nearly so cold as she'd been the day before.

"Madam, I'm afraid you'll find you are fighting _logic_ with belief," he told her, smirking ever so slightly. "Sithis is as much a fact as chaos."

Eloe only smiled.

"Things die, yes?"

She was enjoying herself, he realized. The tired glow had faded from her skin and there was definitely a mischievous glint in her eyes as she smiled at him, waiting for his argument. Strange, beautiful creature.

"All souls return to the void in death," he said at last. "And thus, they return to Sithis."

She grinned at him, taking the kettle from the fire with a metal pole.

"Then obviously he is an extension of Arkay."

And she sat there watching him, so utterly pleased with herself that Lucien couldn't help but laugh.

"If this is truly an example of your logic then I must say I find it astonishing you're capable of dressing yourself in the morning."

Eloe shrugged, stirring sweetpulp into her kettle.

"I only dress for your benefit. Were you not here I'd spend my nights dancing naked in the moonlight."

Lucien blinked and stared at her, taken off-guard by her deadpan admission. Obviously, she was not the sort of woman who would leave the house in men's clothing let alone _dance naked_, but she was so _serious. _Never mind the image of that lush body lit by moonlight was already winding through the forefront of his mind, glowing with the promise of sex and looking so very _tempting…_

"Forgive me if I find that hard to believe, darling," he said at last, but Eloe only grinned and poured the contents of her kettle into an old stone mug, impish with her hair fraying about her face, golden light barely skittering across her skin.

"No one does," she said, laughing as she handed him the mug. And then, looking decidedly _wicked _in a way that left Lucien _aching_ to ravage her, "At least until they catch me, anyway."


	7. Chapter Seven

**Author's Note: **So I posted all three of these at once because I don't want to write Stonebriar anymore and these were the last finished chapters I have. Sorry. I know it sucks, but I really only started writing this so I could break a writer's block and now that it's broken, I'd like to get back to my books. I'll probably finish it sometime though.

**Stonebriar**

**Chapter Seven**

*****

Eloe woke up a few hours after dawn and promptly buried herself under a pillow. She did not want to get up. She definitely didn't want to get up and face her assassin first thing in the morning. She just wasn't up for the smug looks and sexual innuendo. There were far more important matters to concern herself with at the moment. Like the reason she'd been neglecting her more complex potion orders in favor of smashing berries so she didn't have to worry about singing her eyebrows when Lucien smirked at her over his book. Recently he'd taken to reading the Lusty Argonian Maid while shooting pointed glances in her direction and if Eloe were honest, she rather enjoyed the attention.

She knew better though. While her bed was especially big these days and her covers rather cold, getting involved with an assassin was not about to fix that. He'd be good for a night or two certainly, but those few nights would jeopardize the rest of her life. There was no telling what sort of horrible… _people, _for lack of a better word, were following him and really the sooner she got him back up and on his feet the better.

It was a blessing then that he was healing so fast. Already she had more magic of her own to spare, Lucien beginning settling nicely back into his body as he began making his own magic again. It was a _relief_, she insisted despite niggling doubts to the contrary. Captain Steffan had taken the better part of two months to get back on his feet and he'd been…

He'd been sharing her bed.

Eloe sighed, wondering if her assassin would be especially put out were she to suddenly smother herself with a pillow. It'd be a service to Cyrodiil, really. A woman with her gift—with her _responsibilities_—pining away after a man who wanted less than nothing to do with her like some girl just filling out her skin.

But then that wasn't exactly true. It wasn't _him _she was pining after. They'd separated rather less than amicably over a year ago and she was far too practical to hope or even _want _a reunion with him. No, it was his warmth she missed. It was having someone there to fill the empty spaces. It was having someone she could speak her mind to without worrying about mindless rumors. If she were completely honest with herself, it was waking up next to someone she could stand the sight of she missed the most.

It was strange being so lonely. She'd spent the majority of her life being the outsider, drifting from place to place with no connections to tie her down. And she'd made friends along the way—she wasn't an irredeemable social pariah—but leaving them behind had never bothered her. But somehow now, waking up alone, going through her days alone, without even Perennia to drop by…

Perhaps that was why her assassin had her so charmed. And she knew better than to return his idle flirting, but it'd been ages since she'd had anyone to flirt with and longer still since there'd been intelligent conversation involved.

Eloe closed her eyes, wishing she knew what her assassin was even _doing_ here. Something immense was brewing—an uneasy energy hanging in the air like a summer storm's first threat—and there wasn't a doubt in her mind that Lucien was at the center of it. Her too now that she'd dragged him back in the world of the living. Whatever was tipping the balance of power involved them both. And Arkay… Arkay was only watching. He was never the most communicative of gods, but usually he sent _some_ sort of oblique sign. A flower blooming in the snow, an unexpected child with an interesting birthmark—_something_. Not now. Now it felt as though he were waiting for something. Waiting and watching to see what his flock would do. And Eloe had the distinct impression she was being tested but she hadn't the faintest idea what to _do_.

Which probably meant she needed to visit the Chapel of Arkay in Cheydinhal, but the city was a lifetime away and—was that _coffee_ she smelled?

Thoughts drifting away from her like daydreaming rabbits, Eloe emerged from her smothering cocoon. She definitely smelled coffee. Well, that was certainly enough to get her out of bed at least. Smiling to herself and pointedly ignoring the fact that she was no doubt about to walk into a conversation laden with sexual suggestion and far more intelligent quips than she could compete with this early in the morning, Eloe slipped on her robe and wincing at the feel of the cold floor on her bare feet, made her way out into the kitchen.

*

Lucien scanned the newspaper with little interest, far more concerned with the date than a rain of burning dogs in some backwater little town. He'd lost almost two weeks. _Two weeks_ and he still didn't know if his Silencer was even alive, let alone whether or not she'd been able to find and destroy the traitor. He hoped the Cheydinhal sanctuary was still barricaded, at least. He'd ordered Vicente to hold the door until he returned, but if the vampire had heard of his death…

Lucien sighed and let the newspaper fall to the table, running fingers through his newly cropped hair. He needed to get back but he knew damn well he might as well kill himself as leave now. Climbing up the stairs this morning had winded him. The likelihood of his even surviving the ride to Cheydinhal in his condition was slim. Not that current company left anything to be desired. The woman was a mystery—closed off one minute and mischievously charming the next.

And, he noted with a smirk, currently making a bee line for the coffee in a robe that likely predated civilization.

"I must say, my dear, you look absolutely _stunning_ in the morning."

Eloe glanced at him as she took a mug from the hearth, hair sleep tousled into a mane around her head, circles under her eyes glaring in the morning light. All in all, she looked like someone who had recently contracted rabies from a vampire. But Lucien smiled brightly nonetheless, tried to look more sincere than amused and reached for his own coffee.

"You know," she said, pulling a tiny silver bowl of sugar cubes from the standing cabinet, "I was fairly certain the phrase _bed rest_ involved a bed."

Lucien laughed and leaned back, watching as Eloe took a sip of still steaming coffee and closed her eyes in bliss.

"I'm afraid I've never been the sort to stay in bed without a reason," he purred, watching the motion of her throat as she swallowed. "Though if you were to take it on yourself to _convince_ me…"

Eloe looked up at him and there was a spark in her eyes he found decidedly attractive. She actually looked as though she were _considering it_.

"No," she said at last. "The last man to offer me that keeled over from exhaustion and I don't want to have to wrestle you into the wheelbarrow again."

And he tried to keep a straight face to that, he really did. But his prim and proper priestess said it as though she were commenting on the weather and Lucien wasn't entirely sure whether to laugh or press her against the wall and see just what she was hiding under that threadbare robe.

*

Somewhere between last night and waking up to the smell of coffee, Eloe distinctly remembered promising herself she _would_ _not flirt with assassins. _Especially not assassins that looked far too tempting in clothes Steffan had left behind half a lifetime ago, sitting at her kitchen table and watching her as though she really _were_ stunning first thing in the morning. Because she was a _grown woman_ and as a grown woman, she knew that _flirting _with_ assassins _was pretty high up there on the list of stupid ideas. And beyond that, she had work to do—probably even had places to be—but it was getting pretty damn hard to think with him sitting there _oozing _sex at her and _oh sweet Arkay _he was standing up.

"Is that so?" he purred and Eloe hid her sudden blush behind her coffee cup, wondering if she could drink all of it in one go if it would spare her looking at that _smirk_. "Because I was rather under the impression that _you_ were the one to last… keel over from exhaustion, as it were."

_I will not flirt with assassins_, she thought with a force of will usually reserved for childbirth. _I will not flirt with assassins._

"Is that the Black Horse Courier?" she asked, sidling past him for the kitchen table in what was absolutely not a retreat. "They usually deliver the weekly on Mondas."

And she could feel Lucien's amused smirk burning a hole in her back but Eloe refused to turn around. If she turned around, she'd end up meeting his gaze. And if she met his gaze, she'd end up sending him unconscious messages like _want to find out how sturdy my table is _and that was not the sort of thing that would be at all good for her peace of mind.

"It was rather interesting, actually," he murmured and she hadn't heard him move but suddenly he was right behind her, his breath caressing her neck, long fingers curling around her waist. "A whole town aflame."

_I will not flirt with assassins… _only there was something in the way he said _aflame _that sent shivers skittering down her spine and Eloe turned just to feel those fingers stroke a line of fire through the fabric of her robe. That wicked mouth of his was curling in one corner but she found herself ignoring the challenge of it in favor of imaging the way he'd taste. And it was a bad idea. She knew it was a bad idea even as his other hand cupped her cheek, burning like a brand into her skin and she wanted so badly just to lean in…

Until some fetching _idiot_ knocked on the fetching _door_.

Eloe sprang back like she'd been burned—and she almost felt as though she _had_—trying to force her hair into some semblance of order as she hurried for the door.

_You do __**not **__flirt with assassins! _an inner voice was berating her. _Take this as an unusually specific sign._

"Eloe," Lucien started behind her, and she paused before she could open the door, realizing in the back part of her mind that it was the first time he'd addressed her by name since she'd brought him here.

The bemused lust was gone from his face however, replaced with a dangerous, calculating look that made her realize just how vulnerable she was.

"What?" she snapped to hide her sudden burst of fear. "Somebody needs me."

He pursed his lips, looking _deadly _and Eloe remembered the wisdom in _I will not flirt with assassins._

"Idiot child, do you have _any_ idea who's waiting out there?"

Irritation flared and Eloe abruptly forgot how _deadly _he was, focusing instead on the fact that she held his life in her hands.

"Idiot child?" she asked quietly, anger waiting just beneath the surface like an ancient slaughterfish. "I'm at least as old as you are, Lucien, and might I remind you just how much you _owe_ _me_?"

"And when an assassin comes barreling through those doors after me, then what?" he growled. "Will you simply _convince _them to leave with your no doubt exceptionalconversational capabilities?"

The knock came again, far more urgent this time and Eloe turned away from him to cast a quick detect life.

"It's Honmund," she snapped, recognizing the breadth of his shoulders through the wood of the door. And then, wrenching it open, "What's happened?"

The Nord shifted anxiously, casting his eyes back over his shoulder.

"It's Alga. She's had another of her fits and Cirroc hasn't come back from the Imperial City."

This, at least, she knew how to deal with.

"Run back, I'll follow as soon as I'm dressed. Just make sure she doesn't try to claw out her eyes again."

"Isa's with her now." It was odd seeing such a huge man so distraught. "She's not sure if she should charm her."

"Something small. Just keep her as still as you can until I get there."

"Yes, ma'am," he said and turned, leaping onto the bare back of his borrowed horse. Eloe closed the door as he flew off towards the gate, barely noting the way Lucien watched her, sitting at the table with an unreadable look in those dark eyes of his.

There was far too much to be done. She didn't have time to stop and argue about whether or not she'd made a terminal mistake bringing him here. The last thing Eloe wanted to do today was spend an hour putting Isa's eyes back in her head. Dressing with a speed born of long practice, Eloe grabbed her rough leather bag up from its place by the door and flew out to the stable.

*

Lucien watched her go, waiting for the sound of hoofbeats to fade into the distance before he rose and locked the door. It would do little enough good if the Black Hand came to find him, but at least it bought him time to escape. Aching and irritated, Lucien sunk back into his chair at the kitchen table, cooling coffee in hand. He couldn't stay here any longer. While his priestess made for an interesting distraction and he _was_ grateful to be alive again, it was far too dangerous to remain here for any longer than was absolutely necessary. It was painfully obvious she was the sort of woman who'd open the door for Mehrunes Dagon if he smiled and said please and with the people out for his blood, that was _not_ a risk he could take.

Finishing his coffee, Lucien pushed himself up from the table to search the carefully arranged barrels, chests and cabinets throughout the room. He needed something for luck, strength and the speed of a god. And Eloe had warned him away from anything that restored magicka when he'd asked—something about regaining power without the strength to bind it—but he couldn't wait any longer. Lucien relit the fire in the grate, feeling like time was slipping away from him.

Whatever it was he was late for, Lucien had a feeling he'd been late a long, _long_ time.

*

Eloe flew to Bruma, making a mental inventory of everything she'd need and everything she had while trying not to think of what an idiot she was. And she almost wished she had an excuse for it. It'd certainly been a long time since she'd felt comfortable letting any man into her house, but that was no reason to start kissing assassins. Thank Arkay for Alga's visions. Eloe would be grateful for the distraction even if it turned out she'd only had a vision of the sheep in Skingrad. It wouldn't be the first time she'd rode all the way out simply to listen to prophesies about ewes rampaging through the tomato patch. Though all the times Alga had ever mentioned Skingrad, she was fairly certain it was not a place she ever wanted to go.

Leaving Millie in the horse corral, Eloe darted inside the city and into Honmund's house, freezing at the sound of Alga's rough hewn scream. In the breath of a second she was barely veiled behind a wall of boulders, watching four black shadows circle in on a fifth. And she hadn't been there—it hadn't happened like that—but she could see blood billowing from his robes as he cried out in pain, eyes locked to hers, accusing--

"You're here!" Honmund's pleased and vaguely panicked cry broke her from the illusion and Eloe offered him a brittle smile.

"How long has she been convulsing?" she asked and turned the corner of the strange little house, making her way into the bedroom. Alga's fists were clenched a bloodless white on the sheets, her face ghostlike and contorted with someone else's pain.

"Almost twenty minutes now," Isa told her with the calm of a priestess.

This, at least, she could deal with. She knew how to mend and sooth people—knew what to say and how far to trust what she was told. Far simpler than keeping a handsome killer as a pet, dreaming of his death the same night she dreamed of pinning him to the bed.

"Good," she said, taking a bottle and dropper from her bag. "The visions should come soon, then."

The covers had all been thrown from the bed with the force of Alga's tossing. Eloe stepped around them with the dropper in hand, paralyzing the woman just long enough to slip three drops of calm beneath her tongue. She started thrashing again immediately, but sagged against the bed after a long moment, eyes fluttering open though their color was missing.

"Alive in there?" Eloe asked softly, soothing her hair back from her face and pressing a spell into her skin as Isa slumped back into her chair, exhausted from holding the woman down.

"_Something is wrong_," Alga whispered, old Skyrim accent casting an eerie hollowness to her words. "B_lack. Midnight without a moon—cold as cloud scrapers._"

A perfect, cloudless midnight...

Eloe stared down at the woman with her fluttering white eyes and felt as though she'd swallowed a frost spell. So she was not the only one. There were others who felt the change in balance. And how many of those others realized just what it was they were feeling? Sithis. Her assassin.

Sweet Arkay…

"_Everything is falling_."

Honmund stirred from his anxious pacing by the fire and came to take his lover's hand, warming her cold fingers between his own.

"This is stupid," he muttered, casting an anxious glance back at Eloe. "Can't you make her stop?"

Eloe shook her head, feeling suddenly very far away.

"It has to run its course," she murmured, even as Alga began to speak again.

"_No one knows which way the world goes. Mountains are tumbling from the sky. Something is sick. Everything is sick. Wrong. The order is gone. The gods are watching." _She was quiet a moment, looking around the room with eyes that couldn't see. "_The gods are gone."_

Silence fell on the room. Isa clasped her hands in her lap and began to pray, whispering soft entireties to Talos. Honmund only sat with his heavy jaw clenched, gripping Alga's hand between his own as Eloe leaned against the wall, her head spinning.

Lucien was using magic. She could feel it winding out from her like an unstrung ball of yarn, beckoning her back to Stonebriar with the edge of a soft demand.

"_Lover's touch," _Alga whispered and for a moment Eloe almost agreed, feeling the brush of ghostly fingers against her stomach as the magic wound out of her. "_Too much blood to bleed. Too much life to live. Haywire. Chaos is fragmenting. Daedra waging war against nothing, fighting against the past. Too many souls to keep. We're falling. End over end and no one realizes anything until it's too late and there's always time to stop it but no one's thought to __**turn back the clocks."**_

She slumped against the pillows and closed her eyes, heaving deep, unsteady breaths as Honmund pulled her into a one-armed hug. After a long moment she managed an exhausted smile and opened her eyes to look up at Eloe.

"Your mother's coming," she croaked, her voice broken and vaguely amused. "Funny how that's the only picture that made sense, eh?"

…her mother?

Eloe blinked, the words sinking in like frozen honey.

Her _mother_ was coming _here_? On one of her bloody minded unannounced attempts to convince her into having babies with the next male to cross her path? _While her assassin was still in the house?_

"Oh bugger."


End file.
